Mardi Gras preparations are in full swing! My krewe marches 2.5 miles around the Marigny in under 2 weeks!! I’m very excited to say the least!!

All of Krewe du Vieux’s floats are mule-drawn. All the bands, and each float has their own live marching band- are brass bands. While the krewe throws a krewe cup and wooden nickel, each float generally has their own throw central to that float’s theme.

KdV is the most ribald by far of all the satirical parades. Large paper mache genitalia -6 feet tall in some cases- decorate many floats. Each has their own take on the krewe theme, for 2012 the krewe theme is ‘Crimes Against Nature’.

What is Krewe du Vieux? Thanks to Krewe du Vieux for some of the content below.

The Krewe du Vieux is a New Orleans Mardi Gras or Carnival krewe, originally and more fully known as the Krewe du Vieux Carre (“Vieux Carre” being another term for the city’s French Quarter). It is one of the earliest parades of the New Orleans Carnival calendar, and is noted for wild satirical and adult themes, as well as for showcasing some of the best Brass and Jazz Bands in New Orleans. Originally, KdV was the Krewe of Clones, and was sponsored by the Contemporary Arts Center. It was very wild, as the person in charge of letting the floats out of the CAC den and onto Camp Street would get plastered. After one year as a member, we figured out that we could dress up our old VW van as an elephant or giraffe and just join the krewe as part of the procession. This was a really fun event for the few years it lasted.

Krewe of Clones 1979 Poster Featuring the Radiators!

Deon Haywood named Queen of Krewe du Vieux 2012

Women With a Vision's Deon Haywood

It takes a special kind of person to be the Queen of Krewe du Vieux. It also takes a special kind of person to devote herself to fighting for the rights of some of our society’s most neglected members: women, primarily of color, poor, often not well educated, sometimes addicted to drugs, many of them sex workers, no small number the victims of abuse.

This kind of work requires vision – which happens to be a specialty of Deon Haywood, Executive Director of Women With A Vision and the Queen of Krewe du Vieux 2012.

Women With a Vision Logo

“I’m truly honored and excited to be the Queen,” quoth she. “What better Krewe to roll with? Krewe du Vieux is the only group of people that can truly make fun of the screwed-up kinds of laws we have in this state.” (Not to mention violate large numbers of those laws at the same time.)

Got this from one of the New Orleans bloggers: Just got home. Fire trucks everywhere. KdV Den fire. Seeds, Lewd and TOKIN floats are toast. Fire out now. Looked in for a sec before being shooed away. Front right corner of the den is just pretty much gone–I mean the stuff that was in that corner. Wanted to take pics but wasn’t allowed. Will try to get over there again. No word on the cause.

KdV fire damaged area

KdV Seeds after den fire

January 12, 2010- I’m happy to report the damaged floats are repaired, and the krewe is putting the finishing touches on all floats as they prepare to roll in a couple of weeks.

No parade heralds the start of the Orleans Parish Parade Season more than KdV. I’m an escort in the parade, as I was last year. That means I’m float and krewe security while the parade rolls. I get to photo the krewe and the den before the parade, interview key krewe leaders.

Before there was KdV, there was its predecessor, Krewe of Clones. Clones grew directly out of the Contemporary Arts Center. The CAC ran the parade, and the parade staging area was the CAC parking lot on Camp Street. It was an arty, satirical parade from the start. I still have an original Krewe of Clones T shirt with the theme Barbie & Ken go to the World’s Fair.

After watching the parade one year in front of the CAC, we noticed the CAC Parade Marshall was drinking heavily over the couple of hours it took the parade to leave the staging parking lot.

The next year, we hatched a plan to crash the parade with our own float, taking advantage of the Marshall’s inebriation. We decorated our VW van into an elephant float by dying some sheets gray, and constructing a paper mache trunk, ears, and tail.

The night of the parade, we drove our float into position next to the CAC. When the parade was almost out of the staging area, we took advantage of the loose formation conditions, and drove our float straight onto the route. The Parade Marshall waved us on. For the next few years, we morphed that old van into other animals, and continued to crash the parade until the Marshall ‘retired’.

As stated, I’m in the Krewe of Underwear. Here, straight from the Krewe’s of Underwear website is the rest of the story:

The Krewe of Underwear was founded in [the early 1980s] as a sub-krewe of the storied Krewe of Clones. This wild, satirical Carnival parade, which first marched in 1978, was based out of New Orleans’ Contemporary Arts Center.

Unfortunately, in 1986, infighting among the Krewe/CAC leadership, combined with pressures from the City due to the parade occurring the night before the Super Bowl was to be played in New Orleans, caused the untimely demise of the Krewe of Clones. Not wishing to be denied a good time or any excuse for wild excess, the Krewe of Underwear along with another Clones sub-krewe, the Krewe of Mama Roux, held a “Clone Funeral”. An anatomically correct (and erect) clone was created and placed on a funeral cart, and a short march to a party site was planned.

At the last minute, the individual most responsible for the entire problem got word of the plans, and called the police on the unauthorized march. Informed by New Orleans’ finest that they could not march in the street, since that would block traffic, the Underwearians and their fellow mourners marched on the sidewalk, while eleven police cars rolled along next to them, blocking the street far more effectively than the marchers ever could have.

That same year, two other Clones sub-krewes, the Seeds of Decline and the Krewe of C.R.U.D.E., held their own informal march on Mardi Gras itself, in the French Quarter. After Carnival was over that year, the two groups got together, established an official parade date (three Saturdays before Mardi Gras, the old Clones date), and received permission to march in the French Quarter. Thus was born the Krewe du Vieux Carre (the old, French name for the Quarter), now shortened to Krewe du Vieux. The first Captain of Krewe du Vieux was Underwear’s own Craig “Spoons” Johnson.

As a founding sub-krewe of Krewe du Vieux, Underwear is a leader in theme and float creativity, satire, obscenity, and general crazed celebration. Instantly recognizable by the long, red union suits that are the basis of Underwear apparel (not to mention the only underwear ever worn by most krewe members), the Krewe of Underwear takes on political follies, social norms and a large amount of alcohol every year in the best parade in New Orleans, the Krewe du Vieux.

February 7, 2009- Krewe du Vieux, the only French Quarter-Marigny mule driven Mardi Gras parade, rolled around 7:00 pm. This was my first year associated with KdV. It’s the most ribald parade also, heavy on the political satire. 17 floats with 19 New Orleans Brass Bands.

I do have a history with KdV’s predecessor, the Krewe of Clones. The Contemporary Arts Center started Clones in late 70s. We learned that the person managing the parade took his partying seriously and by the time the last floats joined in the parade, he wasn’t in the best shape to conduct his duties. We would paint our old VW bus into a giraffe or elephant, and drive right into the parade. We did this for several years.

I also had my own float in Tucks for three years during the time that Tucks allowed independent floats for a price. I would rent a stakebed truck and we’d decorate this. Here’s a picture of one of my three floats. I think this is the first one. The fee was around $500.00 each year. 25 of my friends from around the country would come down and ride with my family and neighborhood kids.

My friend Jack got me involved with KdV a couple of weeks ago, when he mentioned that the sub-krewe he marched with, Krewe of Underwear, needed a couple of additional escorts. Escorts are the Krewe’s security force, maintaining order on the parade route. I signed up through the Krewe’s Escort Manager, Jen. It’s a volunteer position with heavy perks. In my estimation, well worth the effort.